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Thursday, 23 June 2011

The Department of Justice and the FBI have cracked an international scareware ring believed to have scammed over $72m (£45m).

The gang screwed money out of more than a million victims. They installed software on their computers which falsely claimed to have detected viruses or malware. The gang then took payment for supposedly cleaning up the machines.

22-year-old Peteris Sahurovs and 23-year-old Marina Maslobojeva were arrested in Latvia on charges made in court in Minnesota.

Although there are several bad hosts in Latvia, the one that really stands out is Sagade Ltd. And it looks very much as if Peteris Sahurovs worked for Sagade, his screen name on the internet was piotrek89which was also the abuse address for the Sagade network.

Sagade seemed to be linked to a number of other Latvian outfits, so hopefully this will make a major dent in malicious activity from that country. Until it gets cleaned up though, Latvian netblocks should still be treated with suspicion.